Garden Updates

IDNYC @ BBG

Garden News Blog

Edible Plants & Recipes

Across Brooklyn, acres of vacant space have lain fallow for decades. Within them lies the potential for a new urban landscape. Community gardens and “pop-up” urban farms provide Brooklynites with opportunities to reconnect with nature, create centers of environmental education, and build stronger, more resilient

Malabar spinach is thriving in this summer's hot weather. This Indian vine is not true spinach, but it produces delicious spinachlike leaves. It's a much better hot-weather crop than spinach and requires very little care. It's also perfect for vertical gardening. It will grow easily up a trellis or even a chain-link fence.

One of the joys of preserving my own food is having delicious, locally grown summer fruits year-round. But as wonderful as traditional fruit preserving methods are, I can only eat so much jam. So I also pickle some of my blueberries, mulberries, cherries, strawberries, peaches, and other summer fruits. Pickling is an

Traditional Japanese confections, or wagashi, are beautiful to look at, texturally complex, and subtly flavored. They are often made with ingredients Americans are surprised to see in a dessert. Rice is used to make mochi, azuki beans are the basis of the red bean paste filling in many sweets, and red algae is processed

It’s peak ramp-picking time in the neck of the Catskills where I spend my weekends, and my neighbor, a logger, recently took us to his favorite spot for our annual foraging spree. Ramps (Allium tricoccum), also called wild leeks, grow on damp slopes in deciduous woods before spring leaf-out, which perfectly describes the

It’s hard not to love sweet potatoes. These tasty tubers are available year-round, and they contain complex carbohydrates, as well as beta carotene, vitamin C, calcium, potassium, and even protein. The Center for Science in the Public Interest ranks them the most nutritious vegetable out there. They also have the lowest